not great attempt at the eye of sauron I'm building a lamp with RGB

Jesse_Schoch · January 26, 2018, 5:52am

not great attempt at the eye of sauron

I’m building a lamp with RGB 3" rotary encoder rings in the base to allow you to change the color easily.

Thanks fastled community for the great library!

marmil · January 26, 2018, 6:29am

I like it Jesse. I’m curious to know more about the encoders you’re using.

You might check out this “anti-aliasing” code, originally by Mark Kriegsman, that I used for a lighthouse effect to see if it provides a smoother rotation for you.

github.com

marmilicious/FastLED_examples/blob/master/lighthouse_beacon_v2_anti-aliased.ino

//***************************************************************
// rotating beacon for lighthouse emulation, Anti-aliased version
// Marc Miller, Nov 2015
//
//Based on Mark Kriegsman's Anti-aliased light bar example here:
//http://pastebin.com/yAgKs0Ay#
//***************************************************************

#include "FastLED.h"
#define LED_TYPE NEOPIXEL
#define DATA_PIN 6
//#define CLOCK_PIN 13
#define NUM_LEDS 12
//#define COLOR_ORDER GRB
#define BRIGHTNESS 255
CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];

int8_t hue = 42;  // Light color
int8_t sat = 190;  // Saturation
int8_t val = BRIGHTNESS;  // Max brightness of light

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Michael_Davis · January 26, 2018, 11:58am

I like it, as well. Given @marmil comment, while I’m not sure I’m into an “eye of Sauron” at the moment, I’m sure there are other applications - like a lighthouse - per @marmil that it would work perfectly for.

Jesse_Schoch · January 26, 2018, 4:14pm

I’ll post a quick overview video of the encoders later today. Essentially they are 3d printed and leverage opto interrupters. I’m pairing them with the blue pill STM32 which has a great quadrature decoder integrated with it’s timers. I’d love some collaboration since there are a ton of ways to do it but I have not seen anyone share their work. I’ve considered using potentiometers but they are hard to stack 3 rings high with the electronics on the inside. I’ve been able to get quadrature encoding working with hall sensors and fridge magnet material. This works great but requires fairly high tolerances since the alternating poles in the fridge magnet are not very strong magnetically and the inverse square law looms big. I"ve also been trying to figure out the smoothest way to do it mechanically. My current design uses 6mm airsoft bb’s and functions like a classic bearing. This is a bit noisy and it seems a bit sub optimal.

Jesse_Schoch · January 26, 2018, 5:24pm

@marmil re aliasing, I was going to alternate between 1 and 3 pixel wide cols on even/odd pos to try to smooth it out. Since this isn’t really intended to be high locality light I don’t think it is worth the effort. I found this globe at a salvage place and they also have some interesting “jar” shaped diffusers. I think i need 144 LED density to make it work well. I saw some great looking 2020 APA102’s but they were ordered direct from the manufacturer. Anyone do any group buys? I’d throw in since they are denser and actually brighter than cheap 2812’s

Michael_Davis · January 27, 2018, 5:27am

It’s all getting above my pay grade.